Yesterday, there was a little wedding in England. I don’t know if you saw it or maybe you heard about it. A prince and an actress got married. You know the story. It directly affects my life in absolutely no way, and yet seeing the pictures and just knowing the story left me with the feeling that perhaps I should be doing more with my life. Am I becoming a princess? No. Am I moving to a different country? No. Am I even wearing not my pajamas today? Hell no. It’s fucking Sunday. I digress though. Marriage isn’t a goal of mine, but not being forgotten is. Just like the song Billy Idol passed on because and Simple Minds got.

In lieu of breaking up with my person to pursue a relationship with a prince in order to become a princess (see Sugar Tits, I do care), I cleaned and cooked and wrote and read and watch conspiracy theory videos. You know super productive shit. I even wrote a to do list, but as getting dressed isn’t on it, I’ve remained in my pjs. That and I can’t be assed to put on underwear today. Right moving on to something a bit more important, my self-loathing. Is self-loathing the correct word? I don’t know. I mean I don’t hate myself. I just think I could be doing more than taking naps and eating waffles. So whatever feeling word that is.

Wanting to make an impact on the world has always been important to me, and I don’t want to be forgotten. But if I want to make a change, I need to start with the man in the mirror. (You all saw that coming, right? I mean it’s pretty fucking obvious.) Well, as my person constantly reminds me, I don’t have a dick nor balls and I’m in fact a woman. But MJ didn’t sing about the woman in the mirror. And as today’s blog is rapidly becoming an 80s songs references galore, I had no choice. But whatever. You get the point. Because of that mother fucking wedding yesterday, I decided to start taking care of my damn self and do the things that are good for me-like making waffles and caramel.

I’m mature enough to know that when I get restless and not feel like I’m doing enough, I need to start taking care of myself. Fuck. I’m mature enough to know that the near constant butterflies in my stomach for the past couple of months mean I should have started going to the gym. I just get so wrapped up in my own bullshit and can’t pull my head out of my ass long enough to put away my clothes. Once someone I know made an analogy of getting mentally healthy is like when a baby cries when you change its nappy. (We were in England. So just in case nappy=diaper.) They’re uncomfortable in their own shit, but it’s uncomfortable getting clean. So, yeah, this is me crying while I’m changing my own damn nappy. Because I’ve sat in my own shit far too long.

Speaking of which, I need to check on the potatoes I’m cooking. Because it’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner tonight. But first I’ll finish making this blog. It’s hard to take care of yourself when your natural reaction is to talk shit about yourself. I’m doing what I can. It takes so much more energy to do things when anxiety and depression are fighting to dominate your life but you can’t let them win because you don’t want to be homeless. I should have made that last sentence personal. My depression and my anxiety are fighting to control my life, but I can’t let them win, because I don’t want to be homeless so I go to work. Also, I can’t let them win, because I know what it was like last time I let them take control, and it was too dark. And I question whether or not I would survive it again. Right. Potatoes. Chicken. Doing stuff.

I don’t know how it happened. One day, I was drinking mostly water with an occasional iced tea or a fruit juice in the morning. (I’m not counting the fruit juice used for coloring my gin, because that’d just be silly. For that matter I’m not even counting gin in the good old days of beverage usage, because I consider it its own category.) There was no room for sugary drinks in my day. No time for artificial color. Then. Out of nowhere, or so it seems. I was at the shop for the second time in four days buying a gallon of Hawaiian Punch wishing it still came in tins.

For those of you who don’t know Hawaiian Punch, it’s an amazing beverage made by God himself. It is frosted animal cookies in juice form. Imagine the best tasting fruit flavored sugar dissolved in water. And viola. Hawaiian Punch. Just don’t forget the little mascot. Anyone know what it is? Anyone? Anyone at all? I’m pretty sure the beverage isn’t related to or even Hawaiian adjacent. Alas though, that is the name it came with. It’s been around for as long as I can remember, and when I was a child it came in big tins. And the slogan was, “how about a nice Hawaiian PUNCH?” I do believe at some point in time, someone in my household even had a Hawaiian Punch game that involved play dough.

It was subtle-my fall into mainlining the bright red liquid from Heaven. My person mentioned one night. A few days later, I mentioned it. A few days later, we talked about the tins it used to come in. That led to questioning if they still sold it in tins. That led to checking the juice aisle for it. (Completely random side note: At our grocery shop, they keep punch drinks separate from the other juices. The punch is in the same aisle as the processed meats.) Realizing they no longer sold it in tins was a bit of my childhood being crushed. But the curiosity of if it still tasted the same was too overpowering. And with that, the person and I bought our first gallon of Hawaiian Punch.

The only thing that’s lacking from the punch these days is that wonderful tinny taste. However, the lack of tin doesn’t detract from the robust flavor of Hawaii and sugar. I have to assume that’s what Hawaii tastes like as I’ve never been to Hawaii nor have I ever tasted a fruit or fruit combination to taste like Hawaiian Punch. For the past few weeks, my tongue has been stained bright red. When I brush my teeth, the most horrifying color comes out when I spit. But it’s oh so good. I can’t stand it. I have to put lemon in my water now for flavor when I drink it. I haven’t made chocolate milk since Hawaiian Punch re-entered my life. Today was the first time in months, I drank iced tea. Mind you, it’s not sweet. It’s plain. And the whole time I was drinking the tea, I was thinking of Hawaiian Punch.

Okay. I’m done now. I just spent the past 500ish words on Hawaiian Punch. It’s not really rock bottom. But I do know there were a ton of other things I could have written about today. I mean the summer is coming and there’s a car being bought and I could bitch for days about my current work situation and best friend is visiting me in the autumn so we can see a beloved podcast live and life-long friend sent me a ton of books and etc etc etc. And lets not forget that today I made pizza using cornmeal on the bottom. You get my point. Right? Because I think I lost it. Hang on. Lemme regather my thoughts… And there we go. My point is I’m boring and using Hawaiian Punch to spice up my life.

I need a fucking haircut. I haven’t had one since before I moved 7 months ago. There’s no more cute pixieness about my hair. It hangs below my neck line. There’s no framing of my face. I actually have to brush my hair. It’s ridiculous. So, I decided to hit up a cheap haircutting chain yesterday. GO having straight fine hair that anyone can cut! And after a brief debate over arguing with my person over something completely stupid or not, I left the apartment to get a haircut and avoid arguing stupidly.

On the way to the haircutter, I had images of all sorts of hair styles that require a lot less shampoo than what’s needed now. Pixies. Bobs. Bitch mom hair or tapered bobs. (I feel the bitch mom hair is far more of an accurate description than a tapered bob. The mom from that show that had all the kids and the parents got a divorce. It was on TLC. You know the one I’m talking about. Okay, hopefully you don’t. But still the mom from that show has the hair I’m talking about.) I get there and was narrowing down my choices. A clean simple bob-make it look like I’m wearing a wig. Or a bob with long pieces in front-not quite bitch mom hair but similar.

My hand was on the door when I happened to gaze through the glass. My stomach sank as I saw children. They were bouncing off the walls. Maybe not literally, but they were smiling and not sitting down in the waiting room. Fuck that noise. I don’t think I said it out loud, but I may have. Regardless, I turned around and went back to the car. Not wanting to go back home as I was still avoiding my person, I noticed the glaring orange light on my dash saying it required maintenance. Okay. So it has been on since December, but still, the time had come to me to face the fuckers at car place to give it maintenance.

Since I didn’t want to admit to how long I’d neglected my car’s needs, I simply told the dude taking my order that I wanted an oil change and the complimentary inspection. I mean I’m not a total dick to my car and I need it to keep working so I can keep working. Even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew he’d be back to tell me something else needed to be done. And I was correct. An hour and a half later (hey that’s my fault for going to a walk-in without an appointment), dude said I needed not $40 worth of work but $300. And I agreed to have it done, because taking care of the car is important. Or so they say.

The TV in the waiting room had all the flipping houses shows going on. And since I don’t have access to cable, I watched said shows. All the while thinking how my apartment could use some fun tiling and a coat of paint and a couch that I hadn’t torn. Also, as I waited I kept telling myself that it could have been worse. I could have been stuck in the haircutting wait room with children for 2 hours rather than the one smelling of rubber tires and motor oil. In the end, I spent way more money than I had planned. But at least there were no children smiling and standing in my space.

I was texting with a life-long friend the other, and she mentioned it had been a while since she had seen a blog from me. I gave her the standard, “oh yeah. I’ve been meaning to…” But today, I told myself through anti-histamine head that I should at least check to see how many weeks it has been since my last blog. Thinking 2 or 3 weeks tops, I was a bit shocked to see my last one posted was nearly 2 MONTHS ago. By a bit, I mean getting punched in the stomach would have been less startling. Where in the fuck did the time go? I’ve made like 20 blogs in my head. And I’ve been meaning to write them all tomorrow. Apparently, tomorrow never comes when your best friend is procrastination. Okay, it’s not really my best friend. Best friend is my best friend. However, procrastination sure does enable the cycle of anxiety and depression to continue in its seemingly never ending hell.

Phone calls at work, forms that need to be filled out, texts to friends and family, writing blogs and other such grown-up things all get pushed off until tomorrow, because I don’t have the energy to do them and/or I’m too amped up to do them. It’s depending on which mental health issue is presenting at the time. Finally, I’ll do those things when I have to. Apologizing, to people for not getting back because my schedule is so crazy. Paying late and/or expediting fees. All the while, never feeling like I’m good enough and that I’m letting those whom I most care about and those whose care has been entrusted to me down. My head can tell me that the neuropathways cause me to go to the darker place. My head can tell me I’m worthy of the trust and love installed in me. My head can tell me it’ll be better if I just get these tasks done. Unfortunately, none of those messages reach my heart when I’m like this.

I can continue reasoning with myself until I’m blue in the face. My hormone are messed up. I’m still adjusting to all the changes. I’m sick. It’s April tomorrow. Fact remains, I’ve been worse. I wake up and get out of bed 5 days a week to do my job despite the anxiety whether coming from external factors or just my head. Fine fine fine. The anxiety isn’t there every day. And it’s to varying degrees. Then there are the days I come home and once I hit the couch I won’t move-not even to go to bed.

The daily grind. I’m able to do 9-5 or something similar. I’m able to still sit with people in their stresses and sadnesses and pasts, and 99% of the time I’m able to leave that shit at work. I sometimes can have conversations with my person beyond what did you do today and what do you want for dinner. I know that things wax and wane, ebb and flow… etc. It’s like I tell my clients, “Life fucking sucks sometimes. What matters is how you fucking handle it.” Okay. Perhaps the quotation marks are a bit of a stretch. I usually don’t drop the f-bomb with the majority of my clients as the majority of my clients are under 10 years old.

Okay. I’m going to drink some turmeric water and take some decongestant of some sort. It’s a red pill. Then the cat will yell at me for not having pet him for the past half hour as I’ve been writing this. Well… perhaps not quite in that order. Cat is already yelling at me, and there may have been a kitty slap involved. Where he hit me. Goodness. I wouldn’t hit him on purpose. I don’t hit kitties on purpose. See another positive about how I’m doing. I’m not in an animal abusing state of mind. Take that depression and anxiety.

That’s how I’m spending my precious Saturday. Am I in Canada? Nope. Am I actually hanging out with other people (not counting the tortoise who just wandered into the room)? Oh absolutely no. After all, this is my precious Saturday. Am I living in a haunted apartment? Not that I know of. I’m just watching Amazon Prime, and I found a show about gay Canadians hunting ghosts. That’s not the actual name of the show, but I think it should be. I don’t even know the real name of the show. And I seriously doubt any of it is actually real. But I’ve found myself very amused this morning.

The best part is when they say sorry. Yup. In this show, the gay Canadians apologize to the ghosts they’re hunting. I’m pretty sure you don’t get more Canadian than apologizing to those who’ve gone before us… Could I be doing something more productive with my one of my two days off from work? Meh. That’s not the point. The point is how cool will it be when folks ask me what I did over the weekend to answer I watched gay Canadians hunt ghosts and then I made a blog about it. That’s write I don’t even write blogs anymore. I make them.

My poor person… I have a migrating pile of clothes, there are still lights I want to hang from when we moved in, pictures that I want to frame. In other words, there are any number of other things I could be doing to contribute to making our not haunted apartment more homey. Not homey in the 90s slang way, but homey as in the sense of making the feels of pure comfort. And yes, my planetary lights and pictures from an old Lord of the Rings calendar are going to do that. Okay, maybe not. And besides I have an entire one more day to do because fuck the Super Bowl.

I don’t think there’s a point to today’s blog. It’s mostly me sharing my laziness and new Amazon Prime discoveries. Because this blog isn’t for sharing anything useful. I mean I could have talked about my dad going home finally after falling and breaking his hip 2 days after Christmas or the financial lessons I’ve learned or just the adulting I’ve started doing on the regular. But no. Not today. Those can be topics for a different time and different place. Today, I share with you that if you have Amazon Prime in America, you have access to a show about gay Canadians hunting ghosts.

So just in case you’re new and/or I forgot to tell you, I recently moved… in September/October. And in case you’re new and/or you’ve never met me, I’m “slightly” “introverted”. Okay, slightly=very much so and introverted=well… you know. Thus, me not talking to my neighbors in my apartment. I’m not a total dick. I mutter a hey in the morning if you catch me in the hall on my way to work. Or I’ll do a head bob if I come across someone on the pathway betwixt the car and apartment. Oh wait! There was that time the old lady across the hall helped me and the person move our couch in up the mother fucking stairs. But other than that; not so much. However that changed in the blizzard a couple weeks ago and the fire alarm tonight.

I’m from Seattle. When it snows there, everything ceases to function. I had no need for de-icer and my dad owned a snow shovel but not me personally. In Massachusetts though, I suddenly need all these things and had to find out the hard way. The night the blizzard was done, the person and I went out to shovel out the car. Thanks for plowing the parking lot, property management company, but you didn’t think plowing the snow behind the cars was a bad idea? Person with his magical abilities to speak to people, even strangers, without crippling anxiety, was able to borrow a shovel from a neighbor. (I wrote her a thank you note the next day, because like I said, I’m not a dick.) As we were shoveling out our car so we could get out the next day, there was another couple parked next to us doing the exact same thing.

Apparently misery does love company, because the four of us were out there freezing our asses off and “maybe” (literally) verbally abusing the property manager. The swears were flying as much as the snow. There was laughter though. Because, what’s funnier than shoveling snow? Right. Anyway. Now, when I see them around, I get a ‘hey how’s it going?’ And I say quietly, not quite muttering, ‘good thanks. You?’ and they respond in turn. This actually happened tonight when I decided to evacuate during the fire alarm going off.

My person, who’s used to apartment living, decided to stay with the pets inside because he wanted to be evacuated… I think that’s what he said. The mother fucking alarm was too loud for me to hear verbatim. Or I wasn’t paying attention. Tomato; tomato. So I was forced out with other residents who decided better safe than sorry. I saw the couple from the snow storm who were in their car having pizza. I walked around the building to see if I saw flames shooting out of the other side of the apartment-just in case because as much as I complain about the person, cat and tortoise, they’re mine now. And I’d be most put out if they were to be trapped in a fiery apartment.

Then I saw the old lady from across the hall, talking with some other old ladies. I had no idea there were that many old ladies in this building. So I stood close to them to shelter me from the wind. I heard them talking about some shit as old ladies do. And whilst I have socialization issues, I can’t help but have the sarcasm flow out of my mouth at times. Tonight was one of those times. Once again, the property management company was the butt of my jokes and comments. It made the oldies laugh.

Finally, the firefighters came and turned off the mother fucking fire alarm. I said good bye to the old bitties. I mean ladies. Old ladies. And I went into my nice warm apartment. My person was waiting for me on the couch and asked me how it was. To which I replied fine. I could have gone on about the oldies, because I suspect them to be more to the list of people I can’t just mutter at. But it’s baby steps, right? Getting friends or at least people I don’t avoid like the plague.

This whole journey… quest… thing to build the life I want isn’t all bad. It’s been no cake walk. (Side note: Why is cake walk a thing to compare an easy time of it to? Seriously. It’s all a matter of luck and all you get at the end is a cake. Don’t get me wrong. I love cake. BUT I want more than cake from life… like pizza and cookies.) I love the city… town… thing where I live. And it’s pretty cool to be able to have a couch I bought with my own money… or I’m paying off with my own money. Same thing, right? However, as noted in the past couple of blogs, things haven’t been spectacular. And tonight, I knew what I had to do to help me deal… I went to the on-site gym at our apartment.

I have missed kickboxing so much. Every time someone has asked me what I like doing for self-care, my answer is always “I used to do kickboxing in Seattle.” I don’t know how my face looks when I answer, but inside, it’s me in black and white looking forlornly out of rainy window. But 1) kickboxing parlors are difficult to find… or at least the type of parlor I’m looking for could be hard to find; 2) kickboxing costs money I don’t have right now. As I just moved across the country and started a new job and Christmas is coming up, I can’t quite justify dropping dough like that; and 3) I’m lazy as fuck. By the time I get home, I just want to eat a large bowl of pasta made by my person and watch mindless TV or Stranger Things.

Tonight though… I didn’t have pasta. AND the mindless television turned out to be a shitty made-for-tv-movie full of white folks that was so bad it made me get my ass of the couch, change my clothes and walk up to the gym. There was no heavy bag. There was no one to greet me. It was just me and the elliptical. Oh! And my music. I was only able to go twenty minutes before I hit my wall and started the cool down. Then I realized just how out of shape I have become. As well as, that near freezing air does not help someone who’s still trying to catch her breath… my lungs are still a bit tight.

So, it wasn’t kickboxing. My heart still goes to black and white and stares out the rainy window when I think about doing kickboxing. But right now, I’m making due with what I have. I’m more relaxed than I have been in a while, which could have something to do with the 2 night time acetaminophen I preemptively took. Even though it was just for twenty minutes, it was about me making the effort to live the life I want. A life with less stress and more energy. A life where I choose to do something-anything-rather than watch shitty made-for-tv-movies. (Side note: Unless I’m drunk enough to enjoy it with my BMN buddy. But since she lives in Seattle, I’ll stand by my previous statement. Until she comes and visits.) Right back to the life I want to live, I want to be healthy and not have my world revolve around work. Not to mention less anxiety and more balance etc.